Whirlpool Corporation had to transform its business. A legacy network stood in the way. Standardisation on a Cisco® platform opened innovation floodgates.

Background

When you're a worldwide manufacturer with a premium brand, you can't afford production bottlenecks or live with creaking systems that stifle your inventiveness. Now, with a new Cisco network architecture implemented by Black Box Network Services, Whirlpool Corporation has greater operational agility and efficiency.

Whirlpool Corporation, the world's largest appliance maker, keeps consumers focused on what matters by helping them do what they need to do: cooking, cleaning, washing, drying, heating, humidifying—so they can do what they want to do.

With market-leading products sold in 170 countries, Whirlpool needs to run its business on the right settings. Just like its customers' homes do.

Challenge

Yet its history had left a legacy of mixed network devices, even in the same plants. Wireless networks were struggling to keep pace as logistics looked to go beyond barcode scanning. This unstable set-up was costly to run and hard to troubleshoot.

"Limited network access left management without real-time views or control of production processes," says program manager, Greg Fisbeck. "We decided to standardise IT operations around the world."